Vanessa Hudgens

The Bling Ring

  • Title: The Bling Ring
  • IMDb: link

The Bling RingBased on real events in late 2008 and through most of 2009, writer/director Sofia Coppola‘s latest film takes a look at a group of teenagers from Calabasas, California who burglarized several Hollywood celebrities with the help of tabloid and gossip blogs (which told the gang when the celebrities would be out of town) and the stars themselves (as many left their homes defenseless, not even bothering to lock doors and windows). The group would come to be known as the Hollywood Hills Burglars or The Bling Ring.

Although the film spends time with all the members of the group, the primary focus is on Rebecca (Katie Chang), the instigator of the robberies, and her best friend Marc (Israel Broussard), a shy gay teen willing to do nearly anything for his first real best friend. The group also includes Chloe (Claire Julien), a friend with the criminal connections to help the Bling Ring fence some of their stolen merchandise, and the homeschooled threesome of Nicki (Emma Watson), her younger sister Emily (Georgia Rock), and her adopted sister Sam (Taissa Farmiga).

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Spring Breakers

  • Title: Spring Breakers
  • IMDB: link

Spring BreakersHarmony Korine is a divisive filmmaker whose themes and characters are often are far more complicated then they initially appear but whose detractors often point to his limitless self-indulgence and gleeful exploration of his young stars; you shouldn’t expect anything less from the writer/director’s latest, Spring Breakers.

Korine knew exactly what he was doing in casting three attractive young Disney and ABC Family actresses (Selena GomezVanessa HudgensAshley Benson) to star along with his wife (Rachel Korine) in this tale of four thrill-seeking college students and their week of danger and debauchery over spring break.

The director is certainly exploiting each of the young women’s good-girl image to make the movie more titillating (which, despite the four young leads spending nearly the entire time in bikinis, it’s really not) while allowing each actress a chance to push outside the limits of kinds of roles they are usually known for.

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Journey 2: The Mysterious Island

  • Title: Journey 2: The Mysterious Island
  • IMDB: link

journey-2-the-mysterious-island-blu-rayAlthough Journey 2: The Mysterious Island returns only a single character from 2008’s Journey to the Center of the Earth the sequel feels very much like a retread of the same adventure. Once again we get the teenager on a quest to find a lost family member with the help of an older authority figure in the middle of a Jules Vernian landscape come to life.

In an attempt to bond with his stepson, Hank (Dwayne Johnson) agrees to take a trip to find Jules Verne’s Mysterious Island after Sean (Josh Hutcherson) deciphers a code sent from his grandfather (Michael Caine) who went missing a few months ago. The pair enlist the help of a Pacific helicopter pilot (Luis Guzmán) and his daughter (Vanessa Hudgens) and soon the foursome find themselves stranded on the island no one, other than Sean, really believed existed.

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An Interview with the cast of Spring Breakers

For the May issue of Interview Magazine writer/director Harmony Korine and stars Selena Gomez,  James Franco, and Ashley Benson, sat down with talk with Jonathan Durbin about their film Spring Breakers which will open in theaters sometime early next year. Korine talks about the paparazzi’s interest in the film and the amount of buzz pics of the young female cast in brightly colored bikinis generated online and in the press. In the film Gomez, Benson, Vanessa Hudgens, and Rachel Korine star as college girls who find themselves in jail after attempting to rob a bank while on spring break only to be bailed out by a local drug dealer (Franco) who gives them a real lesson in crime.

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